LATEST TITLES
SWEET SORROW by David Nicholls, Hodder & Stoughton hardback £20, ebook £9.99
★★★★ ★
DAVID NICHOLLS really knows how to do bittersweet, wistful, problematic love stories. From One Day to Us, his heroes navigate the complexity of their relationships with tenderness and many a misstep, and Sweet Sorrow is written in the same vein.
It’s the late Nineties and Charlie has finished school – for forever.
The summer suffocatingly stretches out ahead of him; the heat, the hormones, the boredom.
Between his depressed dad at home, feeling abandoned by his mum, and somehow having caused a rift between himself and his usual lad mates, Charlie stumbles across a girl, Fran, and she leads him astray – kind of: Joining an amdram club putting on Romeo & Juliet is very much out of his comfort zone.
KNIFE by Jo Nesbo, Harvill Secker, hardback £20, ebook £9.99
★★★ ★★
THE twelfth book in Jo Nesbo’s ‘Harry
Hole’ (pronounced Hoo-luh) series, brings the Oslo detective to his lowest ebb yet, but possibly closer to absolution by the book’s end.
Investigating a vicious murder that has personal ramifications, Hole has to deal with demons real and imaginary as he works through a list of suspects – which this time might include himself, alongside the knife-obsessed rapist Svein Finne.
SUPPER CLUB by Lara Williams, Hamish Hamilton, paperback £12.99, ebook £7.99
★★★★ ★
BOLD and fresh story about food, friendship and feminism.
When Roberta cooks up the idea of a transgressive dining society for women with best friend Stevie, she starts letting herself be free of expectations for once. But it also puts pressure on her relationships.
The narrative, which jumps between the present and Roberta’s lonely, traumatic university years, makes for compelling reading.
BOOKS CHART
1. When All is Said, Anne Griffin 2. Diary of an Awesome Friendly Kid, Jeff Kinney
3. Pinch of Nom (right), Kay Featherstone & Kate Allinson 4. Normal People, Sally Rooney
5. The Secret Commonwealth (pre-order), Philip Pullman
6. I Owe You One, Sophie Kinsella
7. Smoke and Ashes, Abir Mukherjee
8. An American Marriage, Tayari Jones
9. Lords of the Desert, James Barr
10. The Mirror & the Light (pre-order), Hilary Mantel